


Stirs the Culprit - Life!

by tortoiseshells



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Bloomers!, Can Mid-Century Victorians be Trusted to Have a Normal Conversation About the Ottoman Empire?, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, In This House We Love and Respect Anne Hastings (says lil Miss Hopkins), Jed Foster's Time in France Strikes Again, Orientalism Everywhere, Reform Dress by Any Other Name Would Be as Controversial, Subdued Teenage Rebellion, sibling dynamics, signs point to no
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-01 14:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17868812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: Mansion House has a visitor, or, five conversations with or about the Chaplain’s youngest sister. And her bloomers.





	Stirs the Culprit - Life!

**i.**

Why Americans insisted on calling Amelia Bloomer’s pet cause “Turkish Dress” was beyond Anne Hastings, though in her two years’ sojourn she’d only infrequent cause to think on it. She had no desire to wear them, and her life’s work being in military hospitals, she very little cause to even see them. There was, of course, Miss Dix’s edict against rational dress. That had very nearly put a different complexion on the whole affair.

This February morning had started innocuously enough, but then, the sky had been fair when she landed at the Selimye Barracks with Florence. There was a girl tracking snow into the hall, and she was wearing, as Kendrick sniggeringly put it, bloomers.

Byron, of course, could be counted on to comment on the figure any woman cut. “I’ve read that Turkish dress is beneficial to female health,” he mused, sounding far more the procurer than the physician.

“Such a costume cannot be as warm as a proper quilted petticoat. I do not see the benefit,” Anne scoffed, “She looks as though she’s escaped from the Sultan’s harem.”

He snorted. “They go in for blue superfine in the seraglio?” 

The girl crossed her arms before her, levelling a glare at the ogling orderlies. She had not, apparently, heard Byron. But Anne had had enough.

“Don’t be crass, my dear doctor. Now come along. There’s a broken foot that wants your attention.”

**ii.**

Mary knew something was amiss before she could say how she knew it. 

Months ago, when her bones seemed to splinter from the fever, she’d had strange thoughts, and stranger dreams: that the place she called Mansion House was not thing built but a thing embodied – not a place but a being. In her fever, it had been eerie. Having come back to Alexandria, to once again haunt the corridors, it was a comfort. A connection, and one not to be underestimated or ignored. 

She was musing on it, hands busied with poultices, when Kendrick rapped on the door of the nurses’ kitchen. “ ‘S a visitor in the hall asking for you,” he said quickly and stiffly. There was a deal more he wasn’t saying, but he spun on his heel before she could ask, and Mary knew she’d find out soon enough. She set her work aside.

Rounding the corner, Mary’s premonition of disturbance proved correct. A substantial trunk stood in the hall, before the door, glittering with snow and promising all manner of things. The young woman beside it, however: short, beaming expectantly, and standing primly at attention in martially-inspired rational dress. 

“Ah!” said the girl, “You must be – Mrs. Foster?”

“I am. You are here to visit a relative?”

“Yes! – My brother, Chaplain Hopkins. He knows I’m coming, but not specifically today – travel being difficult in the winter, and with the war on, as well! I came directly – my sister Frannie – Mrs. Ashwood, who you know – was afraid if I waited on Dr. Ashwood too long with these supplies at Wolfe Street Hospital, they’d be requisitioned without paperwork – stolen, I think she meant. It has been a journey since Williamstown, but I think it is in order.”

The girl paused a moment, then startled. “Oh! I am sorry. I’m Agnes Hopkins. I should have said so, earlier. Please forgive me, Mrs. Foster! I’ve never left New England before, and I’m a little overwhelmed.”

Miss Hopkins nodded, and beamed, looking as eager as a terrier and as fresh as an April daisy. Mary had attended what the girl had said, but had let the excess of nervous enthusiasm wash over her as she recalled the last time one of Chaplain Hopkins’ sisters had come to call. _What a mess that had been_ , she thought – half the staff of the hospital upended because of Mrs. Ashwood’s own reformed dress and the other half due to her misunderstood identity.

“Will you come with me, please? Your brother is otherwise occupied, but I will let him know you’ve arrived.”

“Of course!” Miss Hopkins said, though she refused to leave the trunk, “But what shall I do with this?”

“I’ll speak to our Matron, Mrs. Brannan. She’ll be along to take custody of it shortly. Until then, Kendrick and Duffy” – the two orderlies hopped to a semblance of attention – “will stand watch. Now, this way.”

Miss Hopkins did follow her towards the library, which at least had a stout fire going after the morning’s nurses’ meeting – when Mary glanced back at her, she was looking quickly about, glance darting over the rows of cots, the bustling staff, the tables stacked with bandages and basins. “Did the Chaplain or Mrs. Ashwood tell you what to expect?”

“In a way,” Miss Hopkins replied, pausing to watch Nurse Younge peel back bandages from what remained of Private Whipple’s arm, “But it is not the same. They think I’m still in short skirts.”

Mary forbore from reminding Miss Hopkins that her skirts were indeed short – certainly, Jed would have, and she could hear his dear voice saying it – and even as she stared, wide-eyed, at the business of the hospital around her, the hospital certainly stared back. Instead, she silently prayed that she could stow Miss Hopkins safely in the library without any outright comment or uncouthness. Holding herself with as much resolute dignity as she could, she continued shepherding the girl, asking after the rest of the family in general and the eldest Miss Hopkins, whose work in astronomy she was acquainted with, in particular.

**iii.**

Jed caught Mary’s hand as she left the nurses’ kitchen, glimpsing Emma Green assembling a tea tray over her shoulder.

“I’ve heard there’s a visitor.”

“There are always visitors,” Mary replied, dark eyes sparkling.

“A peculiar visitor for one of our peculiar friends,” he corrected, kissing Mary’s temple. “Another one of the Hopkins brood? Wearing trousers. Tell me true, Nurse Mary, is it a Master or a Miss Hopkins?”

“ _Miss_ Hopkins. She’s come for Mrs. Ashwood’s confinement.”

“Miss Hopkins, hm?”

There was that twinkle in Jed’s eyes that Mary had learned to mistrust – not that it forbode any danger, but was as sure a sign of mischief as Hale’s shrill whistle or a whiff of tobacco smoke about Matron. Mary said his name in warning, but no use! He was already grinning, a fine head of steam built up and steering for trouble.

“They’re a family of Aimee du Buc de Riverys, no?”

“If you’re not going to speak sensibly with me, there’s an Indiana boy with frostbitten fingers who needs a surgeon.”

“Aimee de Rivery? Cousin of Josephine?”

Mary looked at Jed blankly. “Empress Josephine?”

“The same. Her cousin, Aimee, disappeared at sea in 1788. The French – well, at the very least, Aurelien Berger did, but Aurelien also believed the Fox sisters! Too credible by half, oh – they maintain she’d been kidnapped by the Barbary pirates and sold into an Ottoman harem.”

“Thence the connection to Miss Hopkins’ reform dress.”

Jed, still grinning at his cleverness, nodded. “It’s as real as a wooden nickel, but Louis-Napoleon believes it.”

“I take your meaning, but, Doctor Foster,” she said warningly, teasingly, smiling like an indulgent queen at a courtier, “Miss Hopkins is seventeen if she’s a day. If you have any regard for the Chaplain’s good opinion, do not compare his sister to a – an odalisque.”

It was a marvel, thought Jed Foster, that the warm brilliance of Mary’s smile could still catch him unawares, whether across their counterpane or across the ward. 

“You have my word of honor, Mrs. Foster. Now, your Plainsman with the frozen fingers?”

**iv.**

Emma Green had the distinct feeling of _déjà vu_ , when she saw a woman in Turkish dress in the parlor; the family resemblance was strong, even setting aside the superficial: Miss Hopkins’ pantaloons. She nudged the door shut behind her, and moved to lay out the tea-tray.

“You are Miss Hopkins?”

The girl in question surveyed her quickly, and beamed. “And you’re Miss Green?”

“I am,” she said, “We’ve a little milk, and a little maple-sugar. Do you take either with your tea?”

“Henry wrote that supplies were scarce,” Miss Hopkins replied, wonderingly, “And now I know why Mama was so particular about sending sugar with me, for Frannie’s lying-in! Both, please. Not much, I suppose I should say, too.”

Emma handed off the cup to Miss Hopkins, and set about the end of the morning loaf, and the last of the blueberry preserve a grateful mother had sent her especially. Their visitor seemed wholly pre-occupied with her tea, and little noted Emma’s own reticence. 

Emma settled on a safe inquiry. “You had a safe journey?” 

“I did, thank you. I travelled with my cousins to Washington City, and from thence with Mrs. Jenness, one of the Wolfe Street nurses.”

Emma responded politely, still watching the girl over the top of her own tea-cup. Miss Hopkins was as much inclined to smiling as her brother was not, it seemed, for she needed little prompting to grin and talk cheerfully about the things she had seen and heard on the long journey from Massachusetts: the gleaming silver vastness of the Tappan Zee in the late winter sun, the forest of masts that was New York Harbor, their trains south delayed by weather and men and material for the war. Oh, how she had wanted to stop in Philadelphia, and what she had wanted to see! For, she said, color flushing her cheeks, “It’s a vast and wonderful world, and I see very little of it in Williamstown.”

The family resemblance was even stronger when Nettie blushed. Emma smiled to see it – and even more so when Nettie rattled on into an apology: “I’ve been monopolizing the conversation! I am sorry, Miss Green.”

“Not at all. You’ve had a quite journey – I had rather hear about steamboats on the Hudson River than this morning’s tasks.”

“Why?”

Emma demurred: “It doesn’t go well with tea, I find.”

“Henry” – this said with a reverence Emma never could have managed for Jimmy – “wrote that your work is difficult. But little else to me – I am sure he tells Nora more.”

“Nora is your eldest sister?”

There was a little bit of Alice’s petulance in the jut of Nettie’s chin as she nodded, scowling like a girl impatient to leave behind childish things. It was hard for Emma not to smile kindly at that look, and tip more tea into Nettie’s cup. She’d take it better than being told Henry Hopkins kept his peace because he didn’t want to worry or disturb her.

“It has been quiet, through the winter,” she tried, “There isn’t much to say. Most of our boys are sick – fevers, chills, catarrhs. Just like you’d see at home.”

Nettie huffed, evidently used to being the baby of the family, but rallied enough to accept Emma’s word, and pick another topic. “Henry tells me you’re a great reader?”

**v.**

Henry heard the rise and fall of familiar voices behind the library door: Emma’s soft company drawl and Nettie’s more pinched inflection. It was not his best manners, but he waited a moment before knocking, leaning against the lintel and listening.

There was no spoken agreement, or formal understanding, between Emma and himself. Equally, there was no purpose lying to himself or the Almighty that he did not care whether Nettie liked Emma, or the reverse. He’d a fair idea of what the Greens thought of him, after all.

He needn’t have worried. Nettie and Emma had set aside tea and were bent over a folio, talking conspiratorially of “uncensored text” and “Berenice” – but they looked up together at the sound of his knock on the door: Emma with a look of soft fondness, and Nettie! Nettie shouted his name and nearly knocked him over.

“It’s been a year! You look well – oh, no, Mama told me to check your cuffs and they’re a disgrace, Henry, what have you been _doing_? – were you shot in that coat?- Julia’s friends have been knitting like – like spiders! – she sent me with a new muffler for you –”

“It is good to see you, too,” he said, battling against the tide of Nettie’s well-wishes to speak his own, “You travelled safely?”

“Perfectly so. And Mrs. Foster and Miss Green kindly welcomed me here.”

“It was no trouble,” Emma said, closing up the folio and returning it to the shelf, “Miss Hopkins was obliging enough to pretend interest in old magazines, while we waited.”

“The library has Mr. Poe’s work from the _Southern Literary Messenger_ – essays and stories I’d never seen before! Can I come back, to read?”

Emma caught his eye as he smiled at Nettie. She’d an ability to see through him, or to speak to him without talking. _How could you say no?_ she said with a glance. “When Frannie can spare you,” he told Nettie, slow to look away.

Nettie, armed either with a younger sister’s intuition (or a forewarning from Frannie), smothered a giggle with a dainty cough. “Should we be off? It’s been even longer since I’ve seen her.”

“Of course – yes, of course.” Quickly agreeing, he thanked Emma a little more forcefully than necessary – again to the amusement of Nettie, watching her too-serious brother flush as though caught sneaking sweets. 

“Give my best to Mrs. Ashwood,” Emma bade, busying herself with the remains of tea, waving them out the door. “I shall see you both soon.”

They left the library talking over Nettie’s travels, and those the company they’d kept in Williamstown – Kit Boylan was married, the Hibbert’s two sons had enlisted, one of Father’s former students – Garfield? – was with Rosencrans now as his Chief of Staff, and Uncle Albert had plans for the college observatory. Halfway through the news of their father’s latest project, Nettie stopped abruptly. Something had caught her attention. Listening to Miss Hastings and Doctor Hale on the ward, she cocked her head, considering. A moment’s pause – and she practically rocked with excitement, letting go of Henry’s arm with a quick apology – “just a moment! Just a moment, brother!” 

Nettie bounded up to Miss Hastings, who perceptibly stiffened. “You are Anne Hastings? Who Miss Nightengale mentions in her _Notes on Nursing_?”

“Yes,” the nurse began, “and –“

“What an honor it is to meet you! I could scarce believe it, when Henry wrote that Miss Hastings had arrived at Mansion House Hospital and was tending to our soldiers. I’ve read through Miss Nightengale’s _Notes_ twice since this war begun, and my friends and I have read everything available about her – your – time in the Crimea.”

Miss Hastings stood, stunned momentarily, and Nettie moved to press her hand. “It is such a great honor. Thank you, Miss Hastings! For all you have done for our boys – for all you have done for us women! May I have – may I take tea with you – some day – at your convenience?”

Henry glanced sheepishly over Nettie’s shoulders. Could he convey apology and pride the same look – would Miss Hastings would take his meaning? He might never have been the target of the Englishwoman’s ire, but he had seen it. Wanted to avoid it, for his sake, as well as Nettie’s. But Miss Hastings’ eyes glittered from the praise – cold superiority and a kind of warmth, that she kept for the youngest patients.

“Of course, Miss Hopkins.”

Nettie spoke of nothing else on the way to Wilkes Street.

**Author's Note:**

> Subtlety is not a Hopkins family trait, apparently.
> 
> In a comment train, somewhere, middlemarch encouraged me to write the Hopkins sisters and bloomers!fic - so I hope this fits the bill! Alas, I failed at making Jed refer to Miss Nettie as an _houri_ , but I hope I produced a worthy substitute.
> 
> I don't have a good answer for why I made Emma Green a Poe fan, but I did it before & apparently this is a hill I'm going to die on. Emma and Nettie are talking about EAP's "Berenice", which was published in Richmond's _Southern Literary Messenger_ in 1835. Folks at the time thought it was weird and disturbing, even for Poe - the narrator obsesses over his dying cousin/fiance's (ffs Poe) teeth, before going into a fugue state and robbing her grave to steal them. Except she wasn't dead. Oops. Poe edited it and republished in 1840 - though I can't imagine **how** you would make that less disturbing. Apparently, here, Nettie's only read the bowdlerized version, but luckily she has older-not-quite-sis-in-law Emma to lead her down the path of corruption. 
> 
> Alternately, maybe Emma just has bad experiences with dentists? I'll show myself out.
> 
> Title from Emily Dickinson's #156 - "Surgeons Must Be Very Careful"


End file.
